Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 117 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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106
INDIJN IWARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
From Live Oak creek Capt. Highsmith bore
-across the country towards the sources of the South
Concho. On the way, on one occasion, some of
the men fell in the rear on account of their failing
horses, and at night camped in a thicket of small
bushes. While asleep at night a party of Indians
furiously rode over them, seizing a saddle and some
-other articles and successfully stampeded their
horses. On foot they overhauled the company at
camp next morning. On the head of South Concho
they encamped for the night. One of the sentinels
fell asleep and at daylight it was found that the
Indians had quietly taken off thirteen of their
horses. Thenceforward about half the men traveled
on foot.
At the head of Brady's creek, these men, clad
only in their now tattered and torn summer garments,
encountered a violent snow'storm. Capt.
Highsmith, with a few men, pushed forward to his
quarters on the Llano, to relieve the anxiety of the
country as to their safety, correctly conjecturing
that intense anxiety among the people must exist
on account of their prolonged absence. The other
men remained shivering in an open camp for five
days. The sufferings of both parties were terrible.
Their beef was exhausted and wild game was their
only food, but it was abundant in deer, antelopeand turkey. On the forty-seventh day from Fort
Leaton the last party reached the camp on the
Llano. Thus with forty-seven days each on the
outward and inward trip and eighteen days at
the Fort, they had been absent 112 instead of
60 days. The re-united company was marched to
Austin, and on the 26th day of December, discharged,
their term of service having expired.
From the sufferings of this trip, in less than a
month, Capt. Sam Highsmith died. From 1826 to
1848 he had justly borne the character of a noble
pioneer-
warm-hearted, generous, brave; yet,
most tender in nature and ever considerate of
the rights of others, he never had personal difficulties.
I knew him well, and as he had been a longtime
friend and comrade of my then long deceased
father, his friendship was prized as priceless.
Col. Hays brought in a little son of Mr. Leaton,
to be sent to school.
The doctor who became deranged and wandered
off, fell into the hands of a party of Indians,
by whom his hunger was appeased and he was
kindly treated, as is the habit of those wild tribes
towards insane persons. He gradually recovered
and, after he had been mourned by his wife as dead
for over a year, suddenly presented himself to her,
sound in mind and body.The Bloody Days of Bastrop.
Before and immediately after the Texas revolution
of 1835-6, Gonzales, on the Guadalupe, and
Bastrop, on the Colorado, with the upper settlements
on the Brazos, were more exposed to Indian depredations
than any other distinct localities in Texas.
These sketches have more fully done justice to Gonzales
and the Brazos, than to Bastrop, the home of
the Burlesons, Coleman, Billingsley, Wallace,
Thomas H. Mays, Wm. H. Magill, the brothers
Wiley, Middleton and Thomas B. J. Hill, Washington
and John D. Anderson, Dr. Thomas J. Gasley,
L. C. Cunningham, Wm. A. Clopton, Bartlett
Sims, Cicero Rufus Perry, the Wilbargers, Dr. J.
W. Robertson, John Caldwell, Hurch Reed, John
H. Jenkins, Hon. William Pinkney Hill, for a time
Robert M. Williamson, the eloquent orator and
patriot, Highsmith, Eblin, Carter Anderson, Dalrymple,
/lggleston, Gilleland, Blakey, Page, Preston
Conley, the Hardemans, the Andrews brothlers,the Crafts, Taylor, the Bartons, Pace, John W.
Bunton, Martin Wolner, Geren Brown, Logan Vandeveer,
George Green, Godwin, Garwood, Haldeman,
Miller, Holder, Curtis, Bain, Hood, McLean,
Graves, Alien, Henry Jones, Thomas Nicholson,
Vaughan, Hugh Childers, Hancock and John
Walters.
Aside from many important battles, in which a
large per cent of those men and others not named,
participated, as at and around San Antonio in 1835,
at San Jacinto in 1836 (in which fifty of them fought
under Col. Burleson in Capt. Jesse Billingsley's
company, and in which Lemuel Blakey was killed,
and Capt. Billingsley, Logan Vandeveer, Washington
Anderson, Calvin Page and Martin Walter were
wounded), at Plum creek in 1840, in which a hundred
of them and thirteen Toncahua Indians fought
under Burleson, and other important contests, for
fifteen years they were exposed to Indian forays and
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/117/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.